The film and television world begins with the battle for the throne in Kowloon

Chapter 711 Turkic Situation
After sending Wei Zheng away, Li Shimin was the only one left in Chengqing Hall. He guessed that Hou Junji was forced into trouble by him using the crown prince. In fact, the other party knew it in his heart. A forced melon is not sweet.
If it weren’t for Hou Junji’s compromise, the prince might not have ended up so easily?
But it is easy to deal with his own son, but Hou Junji was plotted by himself, and he suffered injustice for his son. He was angry in his heart, and it was not a long-term solution. He still had to find a way to appease him.

Thinking about the previous affairs between the two families, Li Shimin came up with an idea. Before the Xuanwu Gate Incident in the ninth year of Wude, he and Hou Junji had been engaged. After he ascended the throne, he did not mention it and Hou Junji did not dare to mention it either. It was now time to put the prince's marriage on the agenda, and Hou Junji's daughter would be the prince's consort.

With such a great favor, I'm sure all the grievances in Hou Junji's heart would disappear, and there's no need to worry that he won't train the Flying Tigers for himself.

So he immediately ordered: "Wang De, summon the crown prince's grandson Zhang Xuansu to come to see me immediately."

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Wang De, who was waiting at the door, responded and left.

After arranging the next matters, Li Shimin took out from the drawer the 13 million strings of cash that Li Yan had handed over before, plus the ones handed over by Wei Zheng. It was a thick stack of silver bills that could not be held with both hands. Li Shimin showed a childlike smile on his face.

So there is so much wealth worth nearly 20 million strings of cash?
Just as he was sighing, Ma Xuanliang's voice came from outside the door: "Your Majesty, the Crown Prince wants to see you."

"Let him in!" Li Shimin said as he put the banknotes into the drawer.

Now that the dust has settled, although Li Yan does not know what Wei Zheng and Li Shimin talked about, with Wei Zheng's arguments and Li Shimin's personal intervention to muddy the waters, the offensives of the King of Shu, the King of Wei, and the King of Qi were calmly resolved under the strong pressure of Li Shimin.

He had basically escaped. Li Yan came today to report the Turkic military situation to Li Shimin.

"Your Highness has greeted me, Father. Long live the Emperor!"

After Li Yan bowed, Li Shimin, who was in a good mood, stretched out his hand before Li Yan bowed down: "Get up, there is no outsider here, there is no need to be so polite, what is the matter with you coming here today?"

"Father, I am here to report the latest information about the grassland to you."

Since several hundred households of the Jinyiwei were dispersed to the north, Li Yan came to report some of the results to Li Shimin every once in a while to help Li Shimin understand the current situation on the grassland.

Although Li Yan had looked up relevant information before coming to the Tang Dynasty, he only had a general idea of ​​the movements of the grassland tribes over the past few years. In history books, the actual situation was extremely complicated.

After the Jinyiwei sent back intelligence one after another, Li Yan was really confused by the organizational structure, lifestyle, fighting habits, and even the obscure and difficult names of places and leaders, the geographical borders between tribes, and the complicated marriage relationships of the various tribes on the grassland.

For example, Princess Yicheng of the Sui Dynasty once married three Turkic Khans, and there were many cases of people having the same mother as their stepfather or the same father as their stepmother.

Who is whose nephew, who is whose uncle, all those Teller and She messes around.

In fact, when the Flying Tiger Army was in chaos during this period, Li Yan was not idle either. He consulted a large number of records from the previous dynasty in the East Palace about the distribution, strength, and relationships of various grassland tribes, including their disputes with the Central Plains dynasty.

Even though Li Yan had a strong mind, he was still overwhelmed.

"Father, according to the secret report sent back by the spies of the Imperial Guard, the Turkic Jie Li Ji has wiped out the Bayegu, Turgesh, Hulkhan and other fifteen tribes with iron blood."

Li Yan perked up and said, "He is preparing to attack the Second Khan Tuli, Qibiheli's Qibi tribe and Chuluo's Xueyantuo tribe. If he subdues the three most powerful tribes except the Yazhang tribe, then Jieli may recreate the chaos of Sui Daye. The former Turkic Shibi Khan Duoji will have the power of commanding a million soldiers. By then, it will be even more difficult to deal with him."

Hearing this, Li Shimin's previous relaxed and happy mood suddenly disappeared.

Yes, I am accumulating strength quickly, but the other party is not idle either, and is even developing faster than me.

Li Shimin's face suddenly became solemn. He stood up and walked to a map of the distribution of Turkic forces in the northern grasslands placed on one side of the hall.

Li Yan followed and walked to the side. He saw the map of the Mobei region which consisted of only a few lines of varying thicknesses and some place names. He felt upset, because most of the place names and lines were within the Central Plains. The thick "几" shape was considered the Yellow River.

This obvious river gives a rough idea of ​​the geographical location of the north.

Then there are the big cities like Chang'an, Jinyang and Luoyang. The ones with clearer markings are the two states of Gan and Liang in the north of Guannei Road to the east of Qilian Mountain, and the important frontier towns of Lingzhou, Yanzhou, Yunzhong, Shuofang and Mayi to the east of Helan Mountain. The Fengzhou, Jiuyuan and Yulin areas in the upper part of the Yellow River in the north are still in the hands of the Turks.

It is probably because this place has been a military hotspot and conflict area for quite a long time, including during the Sui Dynasty, so it is clearer.

In this way, the north after crossing the Hetao area was basically a blank, with a few tribes' names sparsely marked on it, all crowded together. In the middle was Yudujin Mountain, where the headquarters of Jie Li's Turks was located.

Although on the map it was only across the Yellow River from Chang'an, Li Yan, who came from the future, knew that the distance was about 3,000 miles. This was the straight-line distance. Considering that there were no highways in this era, and there were only some winding roads, the actual distance was even farther.

This distance is very far, even farther than the distance from Chang'an to Danzhou and Yazhou, the southernmost parts of the continent.

Li Yan had a detailed regional distribution map of the Tang Dynasty at that time in his mind, including the power distribution map of Tubo, Tuyuhun, Western Turkic, DTZ, and the Shiwei and Mohe tribes in the northeast. But without a suitable reason, he couldn't just reveal it.

Because in Li Shimin's mind, Li Yan, as a young prince, should not know these things.

However, with the Jinyiwei spread out across the prairie, combined with their actual investigation results, they can be released slowly to allow Lao Li to broaden his horizons and focus his energy on conquering the world instead of indulging in pleasure.

Lao Li’s task is great and arduous. Do future generations still expect to declare sovereignty?
At present, the Turkic people are still scattered on the vast northern grasslands. The activities of the nomadic people are very regular. Every spring and summer when the grasslands are lush, the cattle, sheep and horses of each tribe are distributed in their respective areas and work hard to grow and gain weight.

When the temperature on the grassland drops and heavy snow falls in autumn and winter, they migrate to the banks of the Yellow River, waiting for an opportunity to invade the south and plunder resources.

Therefore, this war could not be fought before winter. The dense rivers in the south were a natural barrier for the Turks, who were all cavalry. They were worried that their large troops would not be able to cross the river, and they were also worried that once they crossed the river, their retreat would be cut off by the army from the Central Plains and they would not be able to return.

If we really want to start a war, we have to wait until winter when the rivers freeze over and the land becomes flat.

"Cheng Qian, your Eastern Palace's Jinyiwei has been established for some time, and all the people have been sent out. How much do you know about the Turks, the mortal enemy of the Tang Dynasty?" Li Shimin seemed to want to use this opportunity to understand Li Yan's abilities, or to take the opportunity to impart some knowledge of war to the prince, so he was silent for a while and then started to ask a question.

"Father, I am very busy with my studies. I only found time to look up some books in the East Palace collection, as well as some scattered information sent back from the front. I definitely don't know as much about the Turks as you do. If what I said is wrong, I hope you can correct me."

Li Shimin nodded as if he was giving a lecture: "It doesn't matter, just tell me as much as you know, and let your father see how much you have improved during this period of time."

"Father, the Ashina clan of the Turkic people is the northern part of the ancient Xiongnu. They lived in the south of the Jinshan Mountains and were subject to the Rouran. Their race multiplied. It was not until the time of Tumen that they became powerful and were renamed Khan, just like the Chanyu in the Han Dynasty. Their wives were called Khatun."

"The land is bordered by the sea on three sides and the desert to the south, and is vast and boundless."

"The leader of the army is called She, and his sons are called Te Le. The ministers include Ye Hu, Qu Lu Chu, A Po, Shi Li Fa, Tu Tun, Shi Jin, Yan Hong Da, Jie Li Fa, Dagan and other 28 levels. They serve as officials for generations without limit."

"The guards called themselves Fuli, and the Turkic Khan established his royal court at Mount Dujin. In front of the Yamen, he erected a large flag with a golden wolf head, and sat facing east as a sign of respect."

"During the Rebellion of Daye in the Sui Dynasty, Shibi Khan Duoji ascended the throne. At that time, Khitan, Shiwei, Tuyuhun, Gaochang and other countries were all subject to him. The Turks had nearly one million elite soldiers and a vast territory. The strength of the Rongdi was unprecedented, and there was even a rebellion of the army besieging Yanmen."

"After Duji died of illness during his expedition to Taiyuan in the second year of Wude, Shibi's son Shiboqi was too young to ascend the throne, so Nibushe was made king and took the throne in the eastern suburbs. His younger brother Shilifushe was made the Chorokhan."

"The next year, Chuluo died of illness during the invasion of the south. Princess Yicheng did not make her son Aosheshe the Khan because he was ugly and weak, but made his younger brother Duoxie the Khan, who was Jieli Khan. Jieli Khan was originally Mohe Duoxie. Yating was close to the Central Plains, north of Wuyuan. Jieli took Princess Yicheng as his wife and made Shibi's son Shiboxie the Tuli Khan."

Li Yan said this, stretched out his hand and drew a big circle in the north of the map, and said: "Today, the nomadic peoples in the north span thousands of miles from east to west, and are unified as Turks in the Central Plains, but under them there are actually six major ethnic groups, including Turks, Huihe, Mohe, Tiele, Shiwei, and Khitan. Under them are countless small and medium-sized tribes, similar to the prefectures, counties, and states in our Central Plains."

"Among them, the eighteen larger tribes occupied the fertile land in the south of the north and gathered in Jie Li's tent. We in the Central Plains often refer to them as the Eighteen Tribes of the Grassland. In fact, there are far more than eighteen tribes under Jie Li's command. Only tribes with more than 10,000 soldiers can be called large tribes."

"Only then can they be qualified to occupy a position in Jie Li's tent, and Jie Li also controls the vast territory of the Turks through these 18 major tribes."

(End of this chapter)